"The noise of our fighting told the mate what was happening, and he
put food and water and a sail in the small dingy, which was so small
that it was no more than twelve feet long. We came down upon the
schooner, a thousand men, covering the lagoon with our canoes. Also,
we were blowing conch shells, singing war songs, and striking the
sides of the canoes with our paddles. What chance had one white man
and three black boys against us? No chance at all, and the mate knew
it.

"White men are hell. I have watched them much, and I am an old man
now, and I understand at last why the white men have taken to
themselves all the islands in the sea. It is because they are hell.
Here are you in the canoe with me. You are hardly more than a boy. You
are not wise, for each day I tell you many things you do not know.
When I was a little pickaninny, I knew more about fish and the ways of
fish than you know now. I am an old man, but I swim down to the bottom
of the lagoon, and you cannot follow me. What are you good for,
anyway? I do not know, except to fight. I have never seen you fight,
yet I know that you are like your brothers and that you will fight
like hell. Also, you are a fool, like your brothers. You do not know
when you are beaten. You will fight until you die, and then it will be
too late to know that you are beaten.

"Now behold what this mate did. As we came down upon him, covering the
sea and blowing our conches, he put off from the schooner in the small
boat, along with the three black boys, and rowed for the passage.
There again he was a fool, for no wise man would put out to sea in so
small a boat. The sides of it were not four inches above the water.
Twenty canoes went after him, filled with two hundred young men. We